Jennifer looked back at Kevin who walked behind the group. Sarah led the way, but Woozle walked beside Jennifer with Soup Bowl on her other side. Rover kept to Jennifer’s shoulder, and Kevin’s goblin, in her sailor costume, rode Kevin’s back.

“Umm, we’re going to a field to speak to a grave digger’s union. I want to learn to speak with the undead. As for the loot, I’m hoping we’ll find something.” She was unsure how looting would work. To her knowledge, none of them had any archaeology traits or a graver robbing skills. Besides, there were probably union rules about that kind of thing. Curiosity had her reviewing the loot they had received from defeating Kevin, the paper raid, and the plant gathering.

Lost in thought, she almost plowed into Sarah when she stopped abruptly in front of the group.

Soup Bowl asked without inflection, “Side quest?”

“We’re going to see the grave digger’s union so you can learn to speak with the dead?” Sarah asked without turning around.

Jennifer looked down, letting out a weak, “Yes.” When she looked up again, Sarah’s clothes had changed from casual wear to her business suit.

“Grave diggers bad?” The inflection of Soup Bowl’s words caught Jennifer by surprise.

“How bad can a union really be?” she asked, honestly unsure why Sarah was gearing up to talk to some unionized people.

Sarah raised her voice and turned toward the group with eyes wide. “We don’t even know the class of the union members. There have been rumors that they are bards, fire wizards, spirits trapped in masks, a legendary ghost, and necromancers.”

Jennifer felt her spine straightened. “What’s wrong with necromancers?”

“They’re evil. They defile the dead. They’re -” Sarah’s words trailed off. As she looked up into Jennifer’s eyes, she could not hold her gaze for more than a heartbeat. “Oh my Cthulhu! You want to learn from them.”

“I want to learn from them so that what I do isn’t evil. My alignment didn’t change when I summoned Kevin’s bones, but I don’t want to fight and kill someone just to use their bones. I don’t want to defile the dead.” Jennifer looked at her shoes, not wanting to meet anyone’s eyes. “I want to find a way to get permission from the dead to use what they’ve left behind. I don’t even know if Kevin is okay with me using his bones, and I lost one of his skeletons in the paper raid.”

Soup Bowl came up and hugged Jennifer.

It was the most robotic hug she had ever had, but a smile crossed her face. She returned the embrace.

“Summon Kevin,” his words were clumsy, but she understood the intent.

Leaving the embrace, Jennifer rubbed what she was going to call dust out of her eyes and summoned the skeleton.

Soup Bowl walked up to Kevin then emojis appeared above Soup Bowl’s head. The first was a set of oversized cartoon eyes, followed by a finger pointing at Kevin. As Kevin’s head tilted in what she assumed was a questioning look. She realized her head was also tilted.

Woozle answered the unspoken question as he too watched the exchange. “They’re communicating through emojis, because they don’t speak each other’s languages.”

Above Kevin’s head, a question mark appeared.

Soup Bowl nodded twice. A large red heart appeared followed by a broken heart. Soup Bowl pointed at the skeleton before pointing a finger at Kevin. The next emoji was a cartoon man shrugging.

Kevin went up to the skeleton and sniffed. The skeleton did not react as the wolf came and circled it. Kevin stopped in front of the skeleton, barked, gave a playful bow, where his front legs stretched out and his head dropped below the skeleton’s head. He held the position as his head tilted from right to left. When his head stopped moving, he barked again.

The skeleton may as well have been a statue. With no reason to move, the skeleton did not. At least that was what Jennifer thought until she saw small movements in the tail bones of the skeleton. Jennifer gasped and her heart skipped a beat.

The skeleton wolf’s head slowly tilted to one side. As it tilted, the tail wagged more. Without warning the skeleton did a playful bow, resulting in the pair playing dog tag with one other. Jennifer smiled. She did not know if the skeleton was gaining personality or if it was just mimicking the movements, but they seemed to be having fun.

Kevin came up to Jennifer, pressing his full weight against her body and he looked up at her. Her skeleton chose to sit in front of her. As she gave Kevin scratches, she asked the group, “Does that mean he’s okay with me using the skeleton?”

No one met her eyes.

“Kid, you are talking apples. He’s talking wolf -” Woozle’s voice trailed off.

Soup Bowl was the one to give an explanation. “Wolves are pack animals. Kevin playing with the skeleton means acceptance. There is no way to tell if he understands this is his skeleton or not, but he is not intimidated or frightened by it. He accepts you into the pack. This is a good sign and the skeleton plays too.”

That was the most Soup Bowl had ever spoken. Sarah was squinting with her left and raised half pointing at the well spoken ninja.

The feeling of happiness in her was enough for now. Not wanting to be left out of the fun, Woozle chased the skeleton when it and Kevin renewed their playing. Jennifer took in a deep breath, counted to three, and turned back in the direction of the grave diggers before she let out her held breath.

Kevin’s goblin walked beside Jennifer as the group moved towards their destination. Kevin, Woozle, and the skeleton continued to play as they walked. Daylight seemed to fade with every step the group took. Jennifer noticed the sun was hanging around the mid-afternoon area of the sky where it was supposed to be, so the sun was less bright here.

“Is it just me or is it getting darker?” she asked the group.

An emoji of a nodding man appeared above Soup Bowl’s head.

Sarah said, “I thought it was just my imagination, but we’ve believed for a long time that the sky is a lie. Rumor has it, we’re headed to a place of darkness where the sun doesn’t even go.” A visible shiver ran through her body.

All of them kept moving towards their destination.

The group came up to a line across the dirt road and stopped. On their side of the line, the road was a light brown, but on the other side of the line, the road was dark flat stone. Jennifer looked around. Unlike the trees around town, which were much taller than Jennifer, on their side of the line, the trees were no more than double her height. But at least there were trees. On the other side of the line stood no living trees. They had fallen over and petrified long ago.

The path they had taken was far from flat, but it did not compare to the road ahead. It was hard to tell what was in the distance. It was almost ink black against ink black. Two moons were overhead, but it was as if someone had thrown a shade over the sky.

Kevin let out a low growl and changed into his full armor. He continued to growl as he crossed the line with his sailor suited goblin on his back. The goblin looked grim and with one hand on a saddle horn, the other on her glowing sci-fi gun.

Soup Bowl crossed the line next in his full glowing neon ninja gear. Once over the line, he vanished. Jennifer wished she could vanish like that.

“Kid, if you want to turn back, no one will think less of you. Plus, if there’s any danger-” He paused on the word danger and showed his teeth in a wicked grin.

Hesitating for ten heart beats, Jennifer quickly crossed the line before she lost her nerve. The sudden temperature change from warm day to a cold night took her breath away. As for her spider Rover, he summoned a trap door on her shoulder and dropped into it, disappearing. Woozle shivered as he crossed the line.

Looking back, the only member of the group that had not passed over was Sarah. Her skin lost most of its color so much so that even her patchy dark spots looked pale. She stared at the line then at the group and back again.

Jennifer began to reassure her. “If you—"

Sarah cut Jennifer off. “No, we go as a group.” Taking a deep breath, she crossed the road.

Sarah activated a power that Jennifer had not seen before. Dark shadows flowed up from the ground in a counterclockwise motion around Sarah, forming an outline of a shield that was a meter in diameter. With a rigid spine, she marched to the front of the group.

Jennifer checked her menu, wanting to make sure her skeleton, who was walking behind her, was set on bodyguard duty. She noticed a buff on her skeleton.

Due to steps taken on an unmarked quest line, as long as this skeleton is out, there is a fragment controlling the summoned creature. Sometimes it is a ghost in the closet, machine, and sometimes in its own bones.

She could not tell what the buff did or how it worked. Kevin was alive, so how could his ghost be in the bones? Was that why it was playing and acting more lifelike than earlier? She shook her head. She did not have the time to dwell on such things.

Sarah was the only one in the group that knew anything about the area, and she was scared, so Jennifer needed to stay focused. Although Sarah could take a large hit, she did the least amount of damage next to Jennifer.

Jennifer smiled. She had a plan, but her plan did not involve fighting. The group followed in a line. Sarah was in the front, Kevin followed closely behind and to the left, and Jennifer was in the back. Soup Bowl used his ninja vanish power to move around. Woozle stood next to Jennifer, standing in an alert posture. With the path coming to a fork in the road, the group remained silent. All eyes turned to her. Breaking convention, Jennifer simply pointed up the hill rather than at either path.

Sarah nodded first and led the way up the hill.

While the hill was steep, it was not a long or hard to climb. When they got to the top, the view showed the same hills and valleys repeated for a great distance in front of them. Jennifer squinted, looking for light sources and smoke. She saw neither. She scratched her chin as she thought about what to do. When she glanced at Sarah, her lip curled up into a smile. In her mind, If she could not go to the grave diggers, she would bring them to her.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

With a shrug, Jennifer turned, looked straight at Sarah, and asked, “So, how’s the weather?”

Sarah looked back with a blank expression followed by a series of quick blinks.

“We have not had rain for a while.” Sarah looked confused but played along.

Jennifer scanned the ground at the bottom of the hill as she spoke. “This will be my first winter here. What will it be like? Does it get cold and wet, or cold with snow?”

She continued to ask questions at random to keep the conversation going, but there remained no movement. Nothing was coming.

Sarah looked at Jennifer with her head tilted. “I guess no matter what you do, you can’t make talking about weather exciting?”

The group waited in silence for what could have been an hour. Jennifer had not asked a question in a while. “Have you ever seen a lightning storm, just in the clouds, where there is no rain on the ground? It’s beautiful. You can lay on your back looking up at the sky to watch. There’s just a flash. No thunder, no rain. Just sparks so big you can see them from miles around, with lighting that never hits the ground.” While she felt the passion in her voice, the plan was not working, nothing in the dark was coming for them.

Not willing to give up, another idea began to form.

While looking at the ground, Jennifer wondered what lay beneath her feet. She realized she had a skill that might tell her.

“Summon Undead.” The power activated. In her menu, a tide of options flooded her vision. There were too many to count. The shock and horror of standing on a burial mound had Jennifer’s heart racing.

“Run,” she shouted and bolted down the hill. The voices of her companions called out behind her, but she could not make out the words. “Run, just run,” she shouted again.

Woozle ran beside her along with the skeleton. Kevin and Sarah kept up without showing much effort.

“Why we running?” Soup Bowl’s voice rang out in his robotic voice.

“It’s not . . . a hill . . .” Jennifer said between gasps as she ran. “Burial mound.”

The group sprinted down the mound and made it back to the road. They did not stop until they were a fair distance from the burial mound.

The group slowed as they neared the lit torch that stood in the middle of the road on the dark side of the road. Staying alert for threats, Jennifer again activated Summon Undead. Fewer options were available here but still more than she could count.

She was a necromancer. As long as her mana and stamina held out, she could summon undead for years here. She swallowed hard as the sudden realization hit her. The moment the group had crossed into this land, it was a trap for all who were not necromancers.

“If it comes down to it, don’t fight, just run. You don’t stand a chance.” Jennifer tried to keep her voice steady while she lifted the mop in front of her and took a defensive stance. She had come here hoping to talk, and she was at least going to do that.

Walking closer to the flaming torch in the road, she felt the urge to speak. Finding no reason not to, she said, “My name is Jennifer. I come from Hogback. And I am a necromancer.”

“My name is Count Vald Fam. I come from the land of the dead. I am a necromancer.” The voice sounded like a voice from a bad vampire movie. It was not lost on Jennifer that he had mimicked her introduction.

“I am here to learn.” A cold sweat came over her as her eyes darted around looking for the source of the voice.

“I am here to keep people out,” said Vald Fam.

“Why?”

The eerie voice in the darkness said, “What did you come here to learn? You can already summon the dead.”

“I want to learn to speak with the undead.”

The silence returned but they could hear the crackling of the fire.

Jennifer kept her breathing calm, and even as her heartbeat hammered in her ears, she looked around.

“That is an interesting power to seek.”

“There is a fine line between grave robbing and archaeology. Between light and dark. Between good and bad. I want to ask the ghost if I can use its bones, not just leave an offering and hope.” Jennifer did not let her guard down as she spoke.

“Good. Bad. Most consider themselves good no matter what the system says. The bones are just what people leave behind.” Amusement was in his voice as it had an upturned note here and there when he spoke.

“Good is asking for permission. Bad is asking for forgiveness when you have the chance to ask for permission.”

The ground before the group trembled. She remembered an underground pipe bursting once, causing a sinkhole. The noise was not too dissimilar, so she backed away.

Two horse skeletons dragged themselves out of the earth by claws protruding from their hooves, pulling a black and red carriage behind them. The carriage door opened and the voice of Vald Fam came from the inside. “Get in and let us speak.”

Jennifer turned to look at her group. Sarah trembled, and Kevin’s fur stood on end making him appear even larger. Woozle stared unblinking at the count, ready to attack at a moment's notice. The team's ninja was hiding in the darkness.

Trap or not, Jennifer felt herself moving towards the carriage, those actions not fully in her own control. Sarah’s words made Jennifer stop. “What are your terms?”

No reply came from the carriage. Jennifer continued to keep her breathing steady, and after a few breaths, she repeated Sarah’s question. “What are your terms?”

“What do you want them to be?” The levity had left his voice.

Jennifer had no idea what she wanted her terms to be. Risking a glance back, she asked Sarah, “What do I want the terms to be?”

Sarah moved up beside Jennifer. With a reassuring smile, she took over the negotiations and spoke as a businesswoman. “Hello, I am Sarah No Val, from the Exports De Universal corporation. I wish to speak on behalf of myself, this group, and Jennifer. Do you all accept.”

“Does this cow speak for you?” Pleasure returned to his voice.

Jennifer's cheeks grew hot and raised a finger, but Sarah stopped her. Sarah’s reassuring smile and nod was all Jennifer needed to calm her irritation, so she simply said, “Yes.”

“A wise man once said, may you live in interesting times, as he continued to live a boring life. Let this be so. I accept you as the speaker for your group.” The merriment accompanied with his accent colored every word. “What are your terms?” There was no questioning inflection in his words. She guessed that the tone he used was either at the novelty of the situation, or trying to give them a false sense of security before closing a trap.

“No one is to be harmed during our discussion. Once discussions are completed, both parties may leave unharmed. Our party will be allowed safe transport out of the land of the dead. Nothing that would harm any member of our party shall happen through action or inaction during or after discussions.”

“I will do no harm to anyone in your party through action or inaction unless in self-defense.”

Jennifer nudged Sarah. “Not everyone in our party understands the rules.”

“Not all members of this party have the ability to communicate verbally with one another and actions can be easily misinterpreted. Do you have a way of correcting this?”

An unearthly howl sounded in the distance, sending chills down Jennifer’s spine. The howl lasted much longer than one of Kevin’s.

When Jennifer realized that she had been holding her breath and clenching her jaw, she forced her muscles to relax.

A man covered in light gray fur, wearing shiny blue pants, and red suspenders, appeared. While his shape was human, his head was that of a wolf. On the wolf’s head was a knitted hat with dangling knitted extensions down the side.

“Are you a werewolf?” The words came out of Jennifer’s mouth before she could stop them.

“How’s it going, eh? Me and some beavers were setting up a meet to compete for some meat that you eat.”

His accent reminded Jennifer of some northerners.

“Meet meat? Or meat meet?” Sarah asked.

“Ya no, it’s a meat meet, down by the meet up, where you compete to get the meat.”

Kevin let out a cross between a whine and a woof that spoke of pure confusion.

“No, well, yeah, but it’s not always easy going down this path. I was a man, then I drank from the same water a wolf both stepped in and drank from. Most towns take out their torches and pitchforks when I try to get a drink at an inn. The buffs are nice.”

Jennifer turned from the werewolf to Kevin, whose ears were standing upright, while his head nodded when the lycanthrope spoke.

“Can you ask him if he is okay with me summoning his skeleton?” asked Jennifer, interrupting their conversation.

“Well, don’t you know it? He kinda likes it. You won it in combat and even gave an offering. He didn’t know you back then. He thought it was a sign of respect.”

“Damn, Liam, we’re playing roles here, and that’s not the right accent.” The man from the carriage yelled out, losing his bad accent. “We’re playing the roles of the undead. There should be a certain -” the carriage man paused, obviously trying to think of the word. “A certain accent for the part.”

“Oh no, sorry, Tim. Most of the time it’s just all the smacking. I forgot we’s supposed to do the accents when talking. So why are we talking?”

“The necromancer wants to use one of her free traits to learn to speak with the undead.”

“Oh, does she now? That sounds like a good thing.” The werewolf nodded approvingly as he spoke.

“Yes, well, we are evil, eh. We need to think of some side quests for her.”

Jennifer groaned at the words ‘side quests’ coming from the one in the carriage and let out a yell, “Why is there always a side quest? Skeletons are everywhere. There’s nothing but death around here and you want more side quests? Life should be more than side quests.”

The one in the carriage stepped out as he spoke. “All life is a series of side quests and taxes. Want to go to the store for eggs and milk? Not only is that a side quest but you have to do a side quest first.” The man wore a red sports jacket, with patched pants, and a dark gray vest and tie over a black shirt.

Jennifer thought the man in the carriage should have worn very old yet high-end nobility clothes. An odd thought passed through her mind. How long from her timeline would it take before this was considered to be the high-end nobility clothing?

“Kid, are you sure this is a good idea?” asked Woozle.

Jennifer shook her head. “No, this is not a good idea. Side quests were the first thing I understood from this world. And it doesn’t look like we are fighting.”

While Jennifer grumbled, Sarah took control of the negotiations. “Okay, what is your side quest? Since there is nothing out here, I am betting on a fetch or gathering quest.” It seemed like Sarah was trying to add authority to her voice by deepening it and adding some projection to it. “And when we’re done with the fetch quest, I would like to add your grave digger’s union to the list of our trading partners at Exports Du Universal.” Sarah put her hands on her hips, striking a power pose.

Jennifer did not begrudge the action. Her friend was a good deal maker.

The werewolf and vampire were giving each other confused looks. The vampire spoke up first. “Who the infernal level is the grave diggers union?”

“Umm, they are the big bads of the area,” Jennifer answered with a shrug.

Sarah added, “They’ve been running this area since the Devs only knew.”

“Never heard of them. Were they big back in the day?” The Werewolf played with his suspenders as he spoke.

“No idea, but that’s who we were expecting,” said Sarah.

“Well, they’re not here now. Shall we?” The vampire motioned to the carriage.

With some reluctance, everyone piled in. Amazingly, they all fit comfortably in the black carriage, and it carried them farther into the land of the dead.

“So, why were you acting so spooky and stuff earlier when you’re really, umm,” Jennifer’s hand was pointing up while she searched for more polite words, “Northerners?” Hoping that was a polite term.

“Oh, and what role do you play?” the werewolf asked.

Jennifer scowled in irritation. Making sure not to direct the gaze at anyone. This world was just a game to some, but it was her life. She never thought about her role in it. “I’m a necromancer?” She felt more than just a little annoyed at the question.

Sarah’s voice held more than a hint of pride as she said, “I am a lead trade advisor for Exports Du Universal and the tank of a mixed group.”

“Ninja level seven surge damage stealth,” said Soup Bowl in his robot speech.

The werewolf bared his teeth at the group.

Jennifer tightened her grip on her mop before realizing the werewolf was smiling.

The lycanthrope said, “This world tried to dumb down the roles so everyone can easily succeed, eh. What do you do for the world, boys and girls?” As he spoke, a red and white can appeared in his hand and he took a sip.